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It seems that our nation, and possibly the world, are in the throws
of a debate of what education should look like and ultimately what learning
really is.Granted, change is
always difficult.And although it
seems education or learning should always be about change, growth and
adaptation, we can also safely say that it’s also about tradition, compliance,
control and power. In addition to the standard debates about educational reforms, there
are two other forces contributing to the newer level of debate.First, technology has become so
dominant and influential in all aspects of the world economically, socially and
politically, that education can no longer ignore technology or attempt to work
outside of it.Two, the impact of
the changing global economy are finally becoming a reality.The nature of jobs and employment is
dramatically being altered so fast that all educational entities are being
forced to reckon with what it all means. In an attempt to boil it down, this is a summary of the maj…

There
are more discussions than ever going on now in our society and culture about
what is learning, what is an education and what should students be doing in
school.To me, there is no doubt
that the world is demanding different skills, advanced types of thinking and greater
levels of performance.

I fully support the emphasis on the
21st Century Skills and the Four C’s (Collaboration, Communication, Creativity and Critical Thinking).However, I also think that we need to add two more C’s to the list.They represent skills that have always
been relevant, crucial and gauges of success – but are even more pertinent now
more than ever.They are COMMITMENT and CONTRIBUTION. As educators and even
students reflect during this annual time of year on graduation, completion,
renewal, goals, accomplishments, accolades and more, it seems we need to ask
one another what was really gained or learned from any educational experience
or situation. Is it about
grades?Getting all A’s is
definite…

With
the time of graduations and school-year endings upon us, we are often found in
a state of reflection.Whether
it’s educators completing another exhausting and challenging year - or students
moving on to new levels of education or new chapters in their lives – this time
of year will often lead to us to see what we’ve done and we’re going to
do.This is reflection and this is
real learning at a high level.

Famous
thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato and Confucius all communicated about the
value of reflection in learning.Early education researcher John Dewey wrote about the value of
reflection in learning often and thought of reflection as the beginning of all problem
solving, higher level thinking and more.Bloom’s Taxonomy addresses reflection throughout and education writer and
researcher Don Clark breaks down reflection as it applies to students,
teachers, etc. (http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html#revised). In
lay terms, how does reflection relate to actual learning?Ultimate…